Multimedia Magic Wand

C-Technologies of Sweden has been a regular headline-grabber at CeBIT in the last few years. It used to marvel at the idea of fitting a document scanner into a pen-sized device, a typical speciality of C-Technologies. Not content with that, its new Magic Stick adds PC pen/mouse capabilities and a digital camera, enabled by that other magic ingredient – Bluetooth. Magic Stick’s five modules – processor, memory, battery, camera and a Bluetooth unit – can be interchanged, depending on the job in hand. Like its simpler C-Pen predecessors, Magick Stick incorporates an OCR scan-to-text function. C-Technologies suggests Magic Stick can be used to scan names and telephone numbers and other business cards details directly into an address book. That could be in a PDA, PC or a mobile phone. URL addresses can be scanned straight into a Web browser, automatically connecting you to that page. Everything links together: photos can be scanned and sent as e-mail attachments; magazine or newspaper articles can be scanned straight into a Word document; and you can also use the Magic Stick in digital camera mode to take portrait photos and store them either in a virtual photo album or together with business cards. All the time the device can be used instead of a mouse